Arizona’s two largest cities have won a legal battle against the state to retain control over how they conduct elections for mayor and city council.

Phoenix and Tucson will not have to comply with a state law taking effect in 2014 that will require local governments to move their candidate elections to even-numbered years to coincide with statewide contests for president and governor.

A Pima County Superior Court judge on Tuesday afternoon released a ruling in the cities’ favor, issuing a permanent injunction that prevents Arizona from requiring either city to adjust the scheduling of its elections. He did not rule on the broader constitutionality of the law.

Judge James Marner determined that the law interferes with a matter of purely local concern: Phoenix and Tucson’s authority to determine how to conduct elections. He wrote that the state cannot require cities to conduct elections in a way that violates their charter, a legal document that establishes local governments.

The injunction does not apply to any of the state’s other 89 cities and towns the law could impact, according to Ken Strobeck, executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. He said the decision does, however, make it unlikely that the state will go to court or pass another law to force other cities with similar charters to comply.

But the ruling was a victory for Phoenix and Tucson leaders who feared the shift would have extended the terms of some elected officials, such as Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, by several months or even a year.

Cities and towns across Arizona have objected to the law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2012, and cite a long list of potential consequences, including that local elections would become fiercely partisan or draw little attention at the bottom of a more crowded ballot.

“As mayor, I didn’t sign up to have local decisions made by legislators not elected by the people of Phoenix,” Stanton said after the ruling. “Cities need to stand up for local control.”

However, supporters of the law have said it will increase voter turnout and help some cities and towns save money because they could utilize county elections resources instead of paying the cost of printing ballots and staffing elections on their own.

It was not immediately clear if the state Attorney General’s Office would appeal the ruling. A spokeswoman did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

Attorneys for the state have argued that the law seeks to preserve democracy, suggesting that off-year elections depress voter turnout and make the process vulnerable to special-interest influence. They said any burdens to Phoenix or Tucson are “slight and incidental.”

“The record is clear that election alignment causes dramatic increases in voter turnout and dramatic reductions in overall election costs and cost per vote,” the Attorney General’s Office wrote.

In his ruling, Marner contended that the law does not “involve a matter of paramount statewide concern” that would justify infringing on city charter provisions and that the law involves a “significant intrusion” upon their autonomy to schedule elections.

He said the state’s claim that aligning local and statewide elections will increase turnout and cut costs is inconsistent with the way the law is written because it applies only to candidate elections and not ballot propositions.

Phoenix voters decided in the 1970s to permanently hold their elections on the opposite years as presidential and gubernatorial contests. Changing that would have required voters to approve amendments to the charter. The new law also conflicts with charter language that governs the mayor and council’s term limits and salary changes, among other issues.

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